Safe and Sound
by gloryblastit
Summary: Angela has a hard time coping as Craig falls apart... Angela's 20.
1. Chapter 1

Jack was tall, even for a ninth grader. Jack Nelson-Simpson, tall and blond, funny and quirky.

"My dad was in a band," he said, banging on the drum set. We were in his basement.

"I know. The Zit Remedy. My dad was in the same band,"

"Oh, yeah," he laughed, did a rippling little effect on the drums.

I lit a cigarette, feeling a little lurky about it since my dad was upstairs. Even though I was 20 I didn't want him to know I smoked or did anything less than perfect. I inhaled, feeling that nicotine buzz. Being less than perfect was Craig's job.

"Angela? Jack? You down here?" That was Snake, Mr. Simpson, Jack's dad.

"Yep!" Jack called, doing a little end of the joke ba tum bum.

"We got grinders. Come up,"

I took one last drag and crushed the thing under my heel. We climbed the stairs and emerged in the Simpson-Nelson kitchen, grinders freshly delivered and wrapped up in white paper. Joey, my dad, looking like warmed over dog shit. His face was harrowed. My brother Craig, who was 29, was missing. Missing from the half-way house or shelter or group home or whatever type of fucked up place he lived at. I'd lost track after all the drug addictions and rehabs and psych hospitals. And dad lost his mind with each one, with each bump in the road of Craig's life. He was in therapy. Not Craig, my dad. I'm sure Craig was, too, not that it was helping.

"Joey, eat," Snake said gently, and dad looked at him with his red troubled eyes. I ate, taking small bites, my stomach in knots because who knew, maybe this time Craig wouldn't be okay.

"Have you heard from the police? Has anyone seen him?" The desperation in dad's voice made me cringe. I'd felt that way, too, when Craig first got diagnosed with bipolar, when he started snorting coke, when he started shooting heroin, when he started drinking. When he got arrested and committed. I was burning out on it now. I loved my brother but he was hard to deal with.

"We haven't heard anything yet," Snake said, "but we will. They'll find him,"

"Angela, how's school?" Snake said, changing the subject. Dad looked at me with wet eyes and a sad smile. At least he had one kid who was working out.

"Good," I said, despite missing classes and scrambling to catch up and doubting my major and my future, doubting everything, I smiled and said good. I didn't want dad to worry about both of us.

"Jack's started high school," Snake said, and Jack gave him a thin smile.

"Yeah. Hey. How about that?" dad said, but he was just mouthing the words. He wasn't thinking about anything but Craig. It consumed him.

We finished the grinders and dad stared at the phone, willing it to ring. Willing some authority figure to tell him that Craig was safe and sound. How bad could it be? How far could he get? Well, let's see. Craig's been on the streets a dozen times, including the time in high school. He's been mugged and beaten and god knows what else. God knows what he's done. I couldn't take it. I headed outside for a cigarette.

In the soft darkness I lit it, and heard the door creak open and hid the butt behind my back, but it was just Jack.

"Hey," I said, puffing away, listening to the traffic.

"Hey, can I bum one?" he said, pointing at the butt.

"You smoke?" I said, pulling out my pack, plucking one out for him.

"Yeah, well, you know. Don't tell dad. He'd die if I'm not as perfect as Emma,"

Emma, Jack's older sister. She was 28 . Half-sister, like Craig was my half-brother. Jack and Emma had the same mother, Christine "Spike" Nelson. Craig and I also had the same mother, Julia Jeremiah. The late Julia Jeremiah.

He smoked like a novice, but hey, we all had to start somewhere.


	2. Chapter 2

I had another cigarette, in no rush to go back inside, my dad falling apart in front of my eyes like he has so many times. I loved Craig but sometimes, sometimes I hated him, too.

I gave Jack another cigarette without asking him if he wanted one, and he smiled at me like a 14 year old getting away with something. I was corrupting the young. I didn't care.

Through the window I could see dad saying something, could see Snake's head tilted in a listening/sympathy pose. I couldn't hear my dad but I knew the gist, I'd heard it so many times. The what ifs. The what ifs of Craig. What if he got hurt. What if he was hungry. What if this horrible thing and that.

"Think they'll find him?" Jack said, not looking all that worried. He didn't know Craig.

"Yeah. They've always found him," I used to think our mom watched over him like an angel in Heaven. Not anymore. I was faithless.

"They'll find him," I said again and pitched the cigarette into the street.

Inside, Snake trying to keep the conversation to neutral topics and dad playing along, trying to act normal despite the fears warring inside him. I knew what that fear was. That Craig was dead. Either murder or suicide. I knew that was dad's greatest fear.

He appreciated Snake trying to keep his spirits up. He appreciated so much. Sometimes I felt this cramp of sorrow and love for him. I tried so hard to be one less thing he had to worry about, but it was becoming less natural. It was more and more of a performance.

"Have a beer," Snake said, and dad shook his head no.

"I'll have one, dad," Jack piped in, smiling. Snake frowned at him and he slunk away, opened the frig and rummaged around for a can of pop instead.

"C'mon. It'll do you good," Snake said, and dad shrugged, took the beer.

There was nothing to do but wait. It was a big world and when someone was lost in it, well, they were lost. Craig had been lost for years.

It was that up in the air feeling, like the crash that was halfway through. Snake had given up trying to discuss mundane things. Dad gave everything to his worry, his eyes distant, not seeing us or the room or the open beer in front of him. All he could see was Craig. Craig beaten and bleeding and curled up on a street somewhere, Craig shooting heroin in a cement doorway, his sleeve rolled up, the needle between his teeth as he pulled the tourniquet tighter.

I sighed, watched the darkness outside grow darker. What did it matter if I kept switching majors when Craig might be dead or dying or victimized in some way? What did my little garden variety common weed worries matter when Craig's life was so severely fucked up?

The waiting was the worst. It could go on for days. I remember the last time it had happened and Craig had ended up in some ER with all these bruises he couldn't explain, talking a mile a minute, infected track marks up and down his arms. I was in high school then, went with dad to see him, to bring him home. High out of his mind, off his meds, he kept shrugging away from the hospital staff trying to help him, wouldn't let them touch him. Dad had the shine of tears in his eyes, equal parts sorrow and relief.

"Craig, let them help you," he kept saying, and I could see Craig trying to listen, wanting to do what dad said but just unable to. I'd just stared at him, wondering where the brother I remembered had gone. The brother I wanted to remember.


	3. Chapter 3

Couldn't concentrate all that well on a good day, never mind when I was worried about Craig. The college campus was nice, I supposed. Flat stone walkways and trees with white blossoms. Nice. I went and got my coffee, lit up a cigarette along the way. I had no direction. No burning desire to do or be anything. Craig had had his music, before certain aspects of his mental illness and drug abuse eroded that interest away. He'd had some idea of where he wanted to go. Me, I could read these textbooks and study this stuff and it just rolled off of me, didn't matter. I shook my head, blew my smoke up into the air, it didn't matter.

There was more to my concern over Craig than just Craig. It had sort of been the accepted theory at our house that Craig's fucked-upness came from _his_ father, from Albert. But I was fucked up, too. Not as severely, no, but still. I had trouble with things, with school, with life. And I had to hide it, felt compelled to hide it. Craig got to be all screwed up and everyone knew. Dad was still taking care of him. But me? I had to pretend that things were always alright, that there were no bumps in the road of my life. I got so mad at Craig for that, even though it wasn't really his fault. He didn't ask for whatever faulty chemical it was that triggered or caused the bipolar. He didn't ask to have his parents die and to be beaten and all the rest of it. But I didn't ask for him to crash into my life and take all the attention and concern away from me.

I shuddered in the cold air, ground out the cigarette butt under my heel, sipped my coffee. God, was I selfish. Almost mind blowing selfish, a little brat. I loved him, I did. I knew I did. As a very little kid I nearly worshipped him, but he was so much better then. Calmer most of the time, normal, able to think clearly. I could tell that even at five years old. When that bipolar hit him, I was seven. He was so off, so hyper and out of control for quite a while before he beat up dad and got sent to the hospital. It was scary to be around him. I knew he wouldn't hurt me. I knew I represented mom to him, in a way. The same way he did for me. I could see her in him, the color of her eyes was the exact same as his. Certain things he did and said was so much like her that I could cry. I barely remembered her, not in any real way, but through Craig I could kind of remember her. He told me the stories of what we all did together when she was alive.

I felt like skipping class, failing, taking an incomplete. That's the word that described me. Incomplete. Damn it. What was I even doing here at this college with all these motivated people who had their shit together? I was biding my time until dad found out that I was a fuck up, too.

Craig, Jesus, was I getting tired of the drama he kept pushing on us all. Dad was getting so gray, and worry lines were etched in his face. I loved him grimly, a dutiful love. It was because, because he was so different now. The years of hard drug abuse had worn away his personality, the mental illness had taken its toll, and he was so hard to reach. I used to think that underneath all that was the brother I remembered. The one who would take me to the park and read me books and watch movies with me. But now I thought that that person was gone.

I dragged myself to class. We all filed in like we usually did and I took out my notebook but I could hardly keep track of what anyone was talking about. I wanted to put my head on the desk and just cry. This professor, a skinny tall guy with long iron gray hair and a kind face, his voice was so soft and monotonous that I always felt a little sleepy in his class. A little concussed. I was fading fast.

The class let out and we all went out into the cool wet air and I wanted to buy another coffee. A big Irish cream hazelnut with lots of sugar and I'd smoke a pack of cigarettes and not even care. My phone rang, it's piercing little ring making me jump.

"Hello?"

"Angela? It's dad,"

"Hi," I held my breath. He didn't usually call me. This was Craig news.

"Listen, Craig's okay, sort of. He's at the hospital, the one downtown,"

"Sort of? What does that mean? What happened to him?" I said, pressing the little silver phone to my ear.

"It means he's alive,"

Cryptic. Well, the rest of the school day was pretty well shot. I went to the commuter's lounge and got my coffee, inhaling its sweet aroma. Maybe I'd take a nap before I went off to see Craig. I was getting tired just thinking about going to visit him.


	4. Chapter 4

Sometimes I was jealous of Craig, as crazy as that sounds. He got to lose himself, he got to let go of the pretense that things were fine. Things hadn't been fine for him since mom died, near as I could figure. He got to have the fantastic racing thoughts, the belief that all the shining things were possible. If only for an instant, he could believe that the glorious things just over the horizon were tangible. He got to experience the highs of the hard drugs he'd chosen to indulge in. Heroin was better than sex, I'd heard. Just heard, of course I would never know. I would never do that, never snort coke or shoot heroin or drink excessively. Not me. Not this girl.

I slipped my sliver of a phone into my bag and headed to my car. It had begun to rain, that rain that seemed just short of turning to ice. Steel gray sky, molten gray, so depressing. I could hear the clicky sound of my heels on the wet pavement. I didn't want to go see Craig, not really, not yet. I had no choice.

Dad was waiting for me in the lobby. He had that look of deep relief I've only seen when Craig is somehow rescued, brought back, saved again. He stepped toward me and hugged me and I hugged him back, felt the guilt right between my eyes because I wished that just once he'd feel that relief for me.

"Ready?" he said, and I nodded, sighed. I followed him, a few steps behind, into the elevator and up to the seventh floor. I knew that wasn't the psych floor. I knew the psych floors of all the surrounding hospitals because Craig had been in them all. If he wasn't on the psych floor it meant he was hurt somehow. I looked at dad with wide eyes when he pushed the lit up circle for seven. He knew what I was thinking. We'd both been dealing with Craig and all of this for so long that we barely needed to speak about it.

"He's hurt," dad admitted to me, and I swallowed hard. Felt more guilt for all my selfish thoughts, for all my unwillingness to deal with this again. Again. And I could really go for a cigarette.

"He'll be okay," dad said, lessoning the blow, and I bit my lip, tried to smile.

We tiptoed up to the door and I was overwhelmed by the hospital smell. Alcohol and Lysol and blood and some industrial strength cleanser. This sort of sicky hospital smell was not so prominent on the straight psych floors. The staff on those floors wore regular clothes and a lot of the patients did, too. Here, up on the seventh floor, the nurses wore scrubs that sort of looked like pajamas, and they had stethoscopes draped around their necks like snakes, scissors and clamps and stainless steel things hung and clung to their pockets and they rushed around on their quiet white rubber soled shoes.

Craig was lying in the hospital bed, and he'd lost weight since I'd seen him last, and the thick beard stubble clung to his cheeks and chin, making him look haggard. His eyes were closed, and one was ringed in dark purple and nearly swollen shut. I.V. bags hung near his bed on a slender steel pole, and whatever was in them dripped slowly into his veins.

"What happened to him?" I said, and dad just shook his head. We never knew.

I was afraid of him again, afraid of his injuries, afraid of the life he lived, this violent crazy intoxicated life. I didn't have anything to say to him. I didn't want to wake him up if he was sleeping.

"Maybe we should come back," I said, wanting a cigarette, wanting a bagel with cream cheese in the cafeteria, wanting a diet coke with lime. And then he stirred, opened the one eye and tried to open the other one and I saw the white part of his eye was all red.

"Joey, Angie," his voice was weak, cracking like a teenager's. I blinked. Dad squinted his eyes, smiled a little and went over to him.

"Yeah, it's us. We're here," Suddenly I wanted to interrogate him, demand to know where he had been, what had happened, and what he was thinking making dad always worry like this. Always. I wanted to grab the collar of the hospital gown he wore and shake it, shake him, and make him tell me why he was so selfish.

I didn't, of course. I sat in the chair with the fake green leather and the worn wooden arm rests and stared at the purple and black of his black eye. I followed the colored fluids that were snaking into his arms. There were monitors by his bed that flashed their incomprehensible numbers. Dad was talking quietly to him, in soft soothing tones, and I watched Craig take these shallow breaths, watched him roll his eyes away from dad for seconds and then look back at him.

"Well, I'm gonna go get some coffee. Ang, do you want anything?" he said, clearly meaning he was going to leave me here. I shook my head no. He went, shutting the door softly. I closed my eyes for longer than a blink, took a deep breath, and then turned to Craig.

He was out of it, whether it was from drugs they were giving him or drugs he had done out on some street somewhere, I didn't know. I couldn't tell.

"Craig, what happened to you?" I said. He turned his head toward me. His hair was longer than it had been when he was in school, and it curled by his collar and behind his ears. I didn't know if he would tell me, if he was capable of telling me. I breathed in that hospital smell that just permeated everything. My mood changed suddenly. I wasn't so angry with him, not for that second. I felt profoundly bad for him, looking at his wasted drug addicted body, his glazed eyes. He was so much older than I had been when mom died, he was 12 or so. That alone must have fucked him up beyond belief. I'd got out of all these things so much easier than he had. I could barely remember mom. My dad was loving and supportive and everything I needed, not like Albert had been toward him. My eyes filled with tears and a few slipped down my cheeks.


	5. Chapter 5

He wasn't answering me and I wasn't surprised, just watched the rain hitting the window and sliding down. Is there anything more depressing than rain against a hospital window? And where was dad, getting the stupid coffee in Siberia? What could I say to Craig? I hadn't seen him in years. I feel like the last time we really talked was when he took me to the park after school when I was five. Of course he was in a crisis then, he was always in a crisis.

I sighed, and he turned his head away, closed his eyes. Maybe he was going to sleep. It was getting dark out, the light just seeping out of the sky. Dimmer. There was a hush here, on this floor and in this room. Strange quiet that I could remember from when I was little little, and the woman in those memories must be mom.

He wasn't asleep, he looked at me, half smiled. A few teeth were missing, toward the back, it wasn't bad. But it wasn't good either. I glanced at the half open door, hoping dad was coming and I wouldn't have the pressure of trying to find something to say to this stranger. Drug addicted mentally ill stranger.

"You're lucky you can remember mom," I said, the words just sort of falling out of my mouth, like Craig was a priest in one of those closed in confessional rooms with the red velvet curtains pulled tight. He looked at me like he was listening and maybe he was, maybe not.

"I just wish I had some concrete idea of her sometimes, you know? She's this huge part of dad's life, your life, and I've only really seen pictures. I know it sucks for you because you lost her but it's better, in a way, than never having her at all,"

Was he listening? He was at least looking at me. But his eyes were glazed, and he stirred uncomfortably sometimes, and I crossed my leg over the other one, bouncing my black leather boot with the little pointy heel up and down, nervous, nervous.

"And you know what else? I don't know what the hell I'm doing at that college. Sure, dad wanted me to go, wants me to go, and I'm going, but it's like I'm not going anywhere. I don't know what the hell to do with my life. Like you, you had music, you had this burning idea of, of, things you wanted. I'm just lost,"

"Angie," he said, and it was only him and dad who ever called me that. To everyone else I was Angela. Like an angel. Yeah, right.

"You'll figure it out," he said in his broken voice, and I narrowed my eyes at him. How in the hell did he know what I would do? He didn't even know me. No one did.

"How do you know? What if I don't? I'm skipping classes left and right, flunking out, incompletes, the shit is about to hit the fan, and the thing is, I don't care about that college. I want to have some purpose somewhere, but everything is just so aimless. And I, I really can't tell dad because…I want him to think, or to not have to worry about me at least. To think that I'm okay even if I'm not. Because he has to worry about you. We always do. You're always…doing this. Why can't you just…let dad not worry for awhile?"

Shit, I shouldn't have said that to him. He's so fragile. I haven't spoken to him like that in a long time. I looked at him a little fearfully, and he was still looking at me, his lips pressed together.

The silence beginning to spin out again, the hush falling like dust on all the furniture in the room, the floor and the shelves. Dad still wasn't back. The rain like a sheet, shimmery and iridescent on the other side of the window, making the things outside look watery and without edges, everything running together.

"I don't know," Craig said, maybe answering me, "I can't help it,"

"So what happened?" I said, looking into his funny hazel eyes. Bloodshot now, dark circles, sunken cheeks. Sometimes I looked at the pictures of him from when he first came to live with us, and he looked so…normal. So much so that I almost couldn't believe he was the same person.

"It was, I don't know," Halting speech, scratchy voice. He was really telling me, I knew because he was very carefully looking to the side of me and not at me.

"I was at that group home place which sucks, because it means I can't function in the world. And I can't. I need someone to make sure I take those meds and don't do drugs and all of that. But Ang, even a place like that isn't enough, not for me. I wanted to be a little bit manic, you know? I wanted to have some energy and some good ideas, and if my brain does it, thinks fast then why shouldn't I benefit sometimes? So I cheeked the meds. They check but I'm real good at it. I've been crazy a long time, you know?" He smiled, that wide infectious smile even with the holes where his teeth were missing toward the back.

"Did it work?" I said, crossing my legs the other way now, bouncing the other boot up and down.

"Well, yeah, but then I figured I'd take off, and there's no where to go except my friends' places and there's drugs there, and it's kinda hard to pass up a quick fix when it's available,"

"What did you do?" Caught up in his life like one of those noir movies, all grainy film and German accents.

"Heroin and some coke,"

"Jesus, Craig!"

"I know, but I like it, and it makes me feel better before it makes me feel worse,"

I looked at him not looking at me. Looked in the dark corners of the room, at the way the squares of the linoleum floor faded toward the edges. I'd never done drugs because of him. Never tried anything like that and I wouldn't, even though a part of me understood that he maybe used drugs differently than I would. He was self medicating, the pain of his present and past all sort of twisted up in his synapses.

"What happened to you? How'd you get so hurt?" I said. Dark fleeting look, every time he got hit reminding him of his father, I figured. Then the look cleared and he didn't look fourteen anymore.

"Just got mugged, I guess,"

"You guess?"

"I don't really remember,"

Quiet again, and the I.V. bags were made of some tough plastic. I thought he did remember what happened and just wasn't in the mood to tell me. Dinosaurs again.

"Ang, don't worry about Joey. He's got enough worry to go around," Craig said, and closed his eyes. I watched as his breathing evened out.

The door creaked all the way open and dad came in bearing coffees, one for me and one for him. Craig opened his eyes and turned his head when he heard him come in.


	6. Chapter 6

I took the coffee he got me even though I had said I didn't want one. Weak hospital coffee doctored up with sugar and those little cups of half and half. Dad glanced at me, nodded as I took the coffee, and then turned his attention to Craig.

Dad dragged the other fake leather chair with the wooden armrests, he dragged that chair next to the bed and took Craig's hand and I saw the tears swim in his eyes. I felt like the pressure was off a little bit now that dad was back. More and more I felt uncomfortable around Craig. We needed a buffer.

I sat back and watched them, watched dad talk softly and gently to him, watched Craig try to listen and attempt to answer dad's questions. It kind of amazed me, sometimes, the devotion dad had toward Craig because he wasn't even really his kid. But it was one of the things that so endeared my father to me, I could barely put it into words. Jealous as I was sometimes that Craig was taking everything from me, everything that was rightfully mine, still, I adored my father for being so devoted to him.

I was a mess, though. Vacillating wildly from one extreme to the other, feeling the relief and love sweep through me one second and the thought, _thank God_, like a prayer deep in my head. Then the next second I'm pissed, looking at him and his bruises and his injuries and his way of fucking up our lives, my life and dad's life. We're always just waiting for the next crisis he's going to drag us through.

I had to go. I couldn't stay there one second longer. I stood up, nearly knocking my coffee off the arm rest where I had set it.

"Uh, I have to go. I really should go," I said, and dad looked at me with his mild look. Craig's eyes were closed. I went over, kissed dad on the cheek, leaned over and hugged Craig but gently. He was so skinny, so hurt, I didn't want to hurt him anymore. I kissed his scruffy cheek and then he did open his eyes, and he looked at me for a second like he used to look, like he looked when he was 14. It made me so sad to see that flash of who he used to be because it was so brief and then it was gone.

"Bye, Ang, I love you," he said, and I nodded.

"Love you, too," I said, and then I was out of there. I was flying down that hall and I knew I left my coffee in that room but I didn't care. I was crying, everything was blurred, but I knew these hospitals like my very own bedroom and I didn't have to look to know where I was going.

In the elevator, alone thank God, I let out a shuddery sigh and wiped the tears away. Craig. He wrenches me. Over and over. It is so hard to have a family member like that, someone who is so sick, so needy, who is just a mass of brokenness, lost potential. And I was going to fail this year of college if I didn't defer it, or something. I had to do something. I didn't know what to do. I felt so insignificant next to Craig and his life or death dilemmas.

Back to the college. I sat in that little lounge and just sat, felt wrung out. Craig exhausts me, he really does. I put my head down on the table, thought about getting a chicken sandwich or something but I just didn't have the energy. The bright lights overhead didn't bother me. I felt numb. Couldn't feel hot or cold. Nothing was effecting me.

"Hey, Angela," I picked my head up. It was Shawn, a kid in some of my psych classes. I looked at his long trench coat and faded baggy jeans, his long sandy colored hair pulled back into a ponytail.

"Oh, hi, Shawn," I said, trying on a smile.

"What's wrong?" he said, looking at me with such concern that I felt like I was about to cry again.

"Nothing, it's just my brother…it's a long story," I shrugged.

He smiled at me, a kind of dazed, sleepy smile. Shawn was kind of short, an inch or two shorter than me. He seemed to always be around, just popping up between my classes. He was one of those people you didn't have to look for, he was just there. That was good. I didn't have the energy to look for anybody.

"Want to go get a drink? You look a little stressed out," Shawn said, and I closed my eyes. A little stressed out. That was an understatement. I laughed, a jagged, shuddery laugh. I sounded as crazy as Craig was.

"Yeah. A drink would be good,"

I knew I shouldn't drink that way, drink because I felt so pulled apart that no one could tell if maybe my laugh wasn't a scream. But right then I didn't care. Jesus, it was one or two drinks, which were perfectly legal. Craig was shooting up heroin, for chrissakes.

We entered the dimly lit bar and sat at a booth, and I felt almost like I could relax for the first time that whole day. Shawn ordered a beer and I ordered a martini. He raised one eye brow when I ordered it, and I glanced from him to the skinny little waitress jotting our orders down on her tiny notepad. I liked when waiters and waitresses wrote stuff down, less chance they'd forget.

And the drinks arrived, lovely little drinks in glasses, and the condensation was visible on the outside of the glass. I took a little sip. A martini was a drink that still scared me. Shawn sipped his beer, leaned back, smiled at me.

"So. Tell me about your brother," he said, and I realized then that I never really talked about him outside the confines of the family. It was almost like a secret. I felt bad, kind of sickened by myself. Why would I do that to Craig? I treated him badly, in my mind at least. And Shawn's question felt kind of good, like I could talk about it, it. It wasn't just Craig and what he did and how he was, it was more than that. It was how he affected dad and how he affected me and how he'd just been like this tornado in our lives, tearing up the trees and the houses, downing the power lines.

"He's such a fucked up mess," I said, sipping my drink, "so fucked up,"

I listened to Shawn in class, heard the things he raised his hand and said. He was analytical. He liked to see the deep causes of the events and actions in people's lives. Well, he'd have a field day with Craig.

"He's my half-brother, actually. But our mother died when he was almost 12, and I was only like two. So I lived with my dad, who is wonderful. I mean, my dad is so supportive, so loving, so much of everything you'd ever need. I missed my mother, I missed not having her in my life because I could hardly even remember her, but my dad really did almost make up for it. But Craig lived with his dad, who was not so wonderful,"

Shawn drank his beer and I sipped my drink, and he listened. It felt good to talk about it, this whole dynamic I'd been twisted up in my whole entire life.

"What was not so wonderful about his dad?" Shawn said, and I thought about it. Craig's dad. Such a kind of shadowy, nightmare figure even in my life. When Craig first came and lived with us I knew those bruises and injuries were from his dad. I knew that when Craig would have nightmares and wake up crying at night that it was because of his dad. I had been afraid of him, too, sort of. I was afraid for Craig and for myself in a weird way. And when his dad died in that car accident I thought he might become a sort of a bad spirit and come and get us.

"His dad was a doctor, a surgeon, I think. But he hit him all the time, Craig, my brother, he'd beat him with his belt and golf clubs and he kicked him and punched him and everything. It was bad. Once, when Craig still lived with him, he brought me to the park this one time," I paused, remembering it. I hadn't really thought about that specific day in a long time.

"Anyway, he brought me to the park and we were just playing, you know. But I kind of landed on him wrong, and his shirt lifted up a little, and he yelled out in pain and I saw this, it was all purple on his side…it was awful. So I asked him about it but he lied to me, said dinosaurs did it or something ridiculous, and the thing was I sort of believed him. Sort of. And I asked him if it hurt and he got real quiet and real serious for like a second, and he said, 'yeah,' with this like incredible sadness…"

Shawn was a good listener. He wanted to be a psychologist or something. It's like they eat up other people's pain. I sipped my drink and looked at him, and he finished the rest of his beer.


	7. Chapter 7

My drink was empty. I looked at the empty triangle shape glass with the bloated green olive in the bottom speared by that toothpick. I looked at it with disappointment. I thought I'd have another one.

Shawn was nice, nice to listen to me ramble. And with the one drink under my belt and another one on the way I didn't feel so bad about talking about it. Spilling the family secrets.

"I used to love to see him; Craig. When I was little he was my favorite person. And he was so great then. He'd play with me, with dolls and coloring and everything. He was never, and I mean never cruel, like older brothers can sometimes be. He wasn't. Of course we didn't live together then, like I told you. He lived with his dad and I lived with mine and our mother was dead. It was very fairy tale like,"

The new drinks arrived. Shawn's beer was in this tall glass, and I watched the tiny bubbles rise. Mine was in another triangle shaped glass with a fresh olive stuck through with a toothpick.

"He had moved to Toronto when I was five, him and his dad, and he'd come and see me at daycare or my babysitter's house or the park but he'd say it had to be a secret. I was five, I didn't question it, plus pretty much whatever he said was the gospel truth. But I let it slip, you know? I'd tell my dad things he said and of course my father figured it out, figured out I was seeing Craig. This was an issue because Craig's father didn't want him seeing us, and I know now that because he did his father ended up hurting him…and I know it isn't my fault, I know that. But when I was a kid I didn't. I blamed myself that Craig was getting hurt because I hadn't kept the secret,"

I sipped on my drink, watched Shawn's calm face as I told him this stuff. God, I'd nearly forgotten how I had internalized that hurt, how I had blamed myself for a long time for all the stuff Craig went through.

"It would make things so much simpler if as a kid you could just lay it all out to someone. Like if I could have told my dad how I felt and then he could have reassured me that it wasn't my fault. That Craig's dad was abusive, period. If it wasn't Craig seeing us he would have found some other reason to beat the shit out of him. But I couldn't just say it, I felt too bad about it. Yeah,"

These Martinis were strong. That was okay. I thought I needed to get blitzed. It was always hard for me when Craig came crashing back into my world.

"But I did do one thing right. After the day at the park, that night some of his friends came over telling my dad that Craig ran away and he tried to kill himself by getting hit by a train and that his father beat him. I remember my dad's face so well when he heard this. He looked puzzled and kind of disbelieving, and he tried to tell them that you can't make accusations like that. So then I told him what I saw, because I knew that they were right,"

I tapped my nails on the table top. Dragging up all this ancient history. I watched as Shawn's adam's apple bobbed up and down as he drank his beer. I watched the hanging lamps swing in the breeze created by people's movements.

"So then he moved in with us, which was great. But it was also, I don't know. It took some adjusting, I guess. And he was just real needy from the start. I mean, of course. He was this abused child, having nightmares and jumping at all the noises and flinching away from my dad. My dad would never hit him, of course, but Craig kind of acted like he thought he might. And I know that made my dad feel bad. He understood it, I know he did, but still. It's like if you take in this puppy that's been kicked and the puppy flinches away from you you feel bad even though you didn't do anything. It was like that. Like living with this injured animal. We loved him, we both did. But living with him was sort of a sacrifice, and I feel bad for even thinking that but it was true. He started to take away the attention I had always received from my dad, and I started to resent him for it before I even realized it,"

I smiled at Shawn, realizing that this was becoming the Angela monologues.

"Shit. I'm sorry. I'm doing all the talking," I said, and I felt the red blush creep up my cheeks. Shawn smiled back at me.

"That's okay," he said.


End file.
